The World Spins Madly On
by Maxiekat
Summary: Steve and Tony finally sit down and talk about Howard - which dredges up memories for Steve, resentment from Tony and doubts from both of them in the role Howard may have played in the creation of The Winter Soldier. Steve and Tony friendship fic. Mentions of Bucky, Howard and Peggy. One shot. COMPLETE.


**The World Spins Madly On**

"You know, we are long overdue for this," Tony said as he led Steve down into the sunken living room. Two glasses in one hand, a bottle of amber liquid gripped in the other.

"For what?" Steve asked, half-afraid of the answer.

"For the talk."

Steve stopped and stared at Tony's back for a second before rolling his eyes and sighing. "Look, I already know all about the birds and bees and where babies come from. I know you guys find it hilarious, but between you making a joke every ten seconds and Natasha feeling the need to set me up on roughly eight thousand dates -"

"No, not the circle of life," Tony interrupted as he flopped onto the couch and Steve sat in the armchair next to it. "But I'm glad to hear Red is keeping you in the loop. Wait a sec, just how in the loop are we talking here?"

"Focus, Tony."

"Right. Sorry. Plus you'd have an arrow in the eye if you so much as looked at her funny."

"Nat and I are friends."

"Friends." Tony winked. "I gotcha, big guy."

"_Friends_, Tony. Men and women can be friends, despite what Harry and Sally have to say about it."

"What?"

"_When_ _Harry Met Sally_. It's a movie. From 1989. Meg Ryan. Billy Crystal."

"When did you turn into IMDB?"

"When I had a mountain of time to kill between missions."

"Maybe you should have taken Romanov up on some of those eight thousand dates."

"Tony."

"Okay, okay. Focus." He held up the bottle he was holding. Steve didn't have to look at the label to know it was a very old, probably very expensive bottle of bourbon. It looked familiar, so he wasn't completely surprised when Tony explained.

"This belonged to dear old Dad. Been saving it for a special occasion."

Steve took the bottle from him and ran his fingers over the yellowed label. "Howard had cases of this stuff hiding on base. His special reserve. He saved it to celebrate."

"Well, I know you can't get drunk, but that's no reason you can't enjoy some of the smoothest, finest bourbon this side of the Atlantic Ocean."

"That is an offer I'd been insane to refuse."

"Finally we agree on something," Tony said as he poured them each a glass. He held his up in a toast, quoting his father. "To the future, kid."

"'To the future,'" Steve repeated as he tapped the edge of his glass against Tony's. His smile was wistful and sad, remembering the chorus of glasses clinking, Dum Dum's voice echoing above everyone else's, Gabe pounding on the table, trying to be heard above the piano, Bucky's smile maybe a little smaller than the rest, the light not quite reaching his eyes. If anyone should have known Bucky Barnes was in pain, it should have been his best friend. The signs were there, long before the train, and Steve had spent the last several months beating himself up over not noticing them.

Tony interrupted his thoughts, as Tony tended to do.

"You know how many Cap and Bucky stories my dad told me as I was growing up?"

Steve groaned. "I'm sure there were a few."

"He was in awe of you guys. I think he was a little jealous that you guys put yourselves out there, on the front line while he was safe back in his lab in a bunker."

"Nowhere was safe back then, Tony. Nowhere. Every day could be your last."

"Guns blazing, Nazis falling." Tony made a familiar motion with his hands, like he was firing a rifle and Steve looked down, twisting his glass on his knee.

"It wasn't like the movies," he said quietly as the memories marched past in his mind. "There was dirt and tears and fear. Hard to feel like a hero when you're knee deep in mud, who knows whose blood caked under your nails, and all you want is to go home."

Tony took a heavy swallow and shook his head. "I just remembered something - Dad didn't do heroes when I was a kid. I wanted to run around in a Superman cape but he would always have some comment to make - said it was childish. Pointless. I think it was because you were his hero." He tapped his glass against Steve's chest. "You, Captain Spangles, were the wind beneath his wings.

Steve grimaced. "A Bette Midler song, Tony? Really?

Tony raised an eyebrow. "You know that?"

"What exactly do you think I've been doing for two years?"

"So you mean to tell me that with all the awesome stuff out there for you to catch up on – AC/DC, the Kardashians, the film catalogue of Steven Segal – you chose Bette Midler?"

Pulling his notebook out of his pocket, Steve explained as he flipped through it, "I have a list of what people suggest."

Tony grabbed it from him. "And someone suggested that?"

"Yeah."

"Let me guess … Banner?"

Steve shrugged. "I don't think so. Actually, come to think of it, it was Clint."

Tony snorted a laugh. "Typical." He held out his hand. "Hand me a pen."

"Tony …" Steve protested as he reluctantly handed his pen over.

"Just need to jot down a few things. Fill in some gaps in your pop culture knowledge. Can't have you walking around not knowing some good classic rock." He shook his head as he wrote, muttering under his breath. "Bette Midler. I should revoke his membership card."

Things grew quiet after that – Tony paging through the notebook, making notes as Steve stared floor, his mind a million miles away. Maybe it was the bourbon or maybe it was the reminiscing, but his mind kept going back something that had been in bothering him for a while, ever since things had settled and he'd had a chance to really look through the file Natasha had given him. "Do you think Howard knew about Bucky?

Tony sighed and put the notebook down. He took a breath, seemingly weighing his words before he spoke. "I …" he started. "I honestly don't know. I hope not." He leaned back, tilting his glass, watching as the light danced against the fine-cut crystal.

"They sent him after Howard." The words twisted in Steve's stomach, like they did whenever he let himself think about what they made Bucky do. The horrible laundry list of killings was one thing, but seeing the name of someone he'd known, someone they'd _both _known, made it all that much more terrible and real.

"I know," Tony said, his expression shuttered, his shoulders tense.

Steve looked down at his hands, imagining one was metal and cold, grabbing Howard's neck and twisting it as he lay in the wreckage of his car, next to his already dead wife. "I'm sorry," he whispered, both to Tony and to his friend that he couldn't save from falling.

"You didn't do it."

"I know. But I'm still sorry." He closed his eyes, forcing the horrible images from his mind. He conjured up lights and music and laughter. The spectacle to end all spectacles. He shook his head, remembering Bucky's boast about visiting the future that night, the irony not lost on him. Steve opened his eyes and looked at Tony. "Bucky was Howard's biggest fan, you know? He dragged me to the Stark Expo."

"The one in '43?"

Steve nodded.

"With the flying car?"

Steve couldn't help but grin. "Sort of flying car. Howard looked heartbroken when it came crashing down on stage."

"How things have changed," Tony said as he motioned to the view outside the window, stories above most of the city. "If daddy dearest could see me now," he said as he poured himself more bourbon.

"He'd be proud," Steve said.

"Correction," Tony said, "a normal dad would be proud. He'd be …" his voice trailed off.

"Proud," Steve repeated. "With the war, SSR, SHIELD. Your dad wanted to do the right thing. I think he'd appreciate what you've built here."

"Okay, but what if he knew about Barnes? Tech like that arm … I admit, it makes me wonder."

Steve sighed and leaned back in his chair. "If he did, I don't think he knew exactly what he was working on. Maybe schematics? Maybe consultations? I don't think Zola would have let him anywhere near Bucky."

"Did you ask Agent Carter?"

Steve's chest constricted at the mention of her name, his heart in a vice. He'd visited her just the other day and she'd been lucid for a change, the light still sparking in her eyes as she asked him about his life. He wanted to hold onto those moments and never let them go, but they were getting to be fewer and fewer as time trudged on. "I want to ask her but I don't want to hurt her." He took a deep breath. "She's sick, Tony. They say it's dementia."

Tony was about to take a sip of his drink but his hand froze and he slowly put the glass down on the table. "Man, I'm sorry," he said, echoing Steve's sentiment from earlier. Steve shook his head. So many damn things to feel sorry about but nothing either of them can do about it.

"Some days are good. Most days are bad," Steve explained, his voice drained of emotion. Between Peggy and Bucky, he felt hollowed out.

"Growing old sucks," Tony said and Steve looked up, expecting the trademarked Stark-smirk but surprised to find genuine emotion on the guy's face.

"Moving on sucks," Steve said quietly, "I wish, sometimes, that things had been different. That I'd found another way instead of the ice. That I'd finished out my life with my friends and Peggy and …" Steve let his voice trail off, the words hanging in the air like a confession made in an empty church.

He hadn't admitted any of those things to anyone, not even Sam, yet here he was, pouring his doubts and disappointments to Stark of all people. He was supposed to be happy and grateful that he'd survived, that he was alive and well, and in the future of all places. But a huge part of him missed the past and the way Peggy smiled at him like he was the only person in the room and the way Bucky stood by his side through every scrape and sadness and triumph. He had friends now, but he missed his family.

Tony cleared his throat, breaking the silence. "Devil's advocate here. Say you did survive the war, marry Peggy, have a dozen little Caps, grow old, the whole nine yards. What if they didn't know about the Winter Soldier back then? Like I said, I know the stories. There was no reason to think Barnes survived that fall."

Steve stood up and started to pace. "But maybe I would have known."

"Why? From what Natasha said, he was a ghost story. It's a huge leap to go from Russian Assassin to undead BFF of Captain America without some shred of proof."

"Just …" Steve started and then collapsed back into the chair.

"I don't know if I believe in fate and all that mystical mumbo jumbo," Tony said with a wave of his hand, "but maybe all this crap that happened to you was for a reason and that reason was to save your friend."

Tony stood up and it was his turn to start pacing, his fingers doing that fluttering thing they did whenever he was working through a solution, like he was sifting through the files of his brain. "For 70 years they kept this guy in the shadows and then suddenly he's parading down Main Street at high noon in gridlock traffic? That was for a reason. He was a myth before that and there is no reason to think you would have had any luck in those 70 years."

"But maybe …" Steve started, preparing to argue his case.

Tony stopped and looked at him, his expression stone-cold sober. "You can't live your life on maybes, Cap. It will drive you insane."

"I guess you're right."

"I'm always right. Ask anyone." Tony tilted his head to the side and squinted. "Well, except for Rhodey. He's biased anyway. And Pepper … safe to just steer clear of the whole 'Me being right' subject when you talk to her. But everyone else? Fair game. Well, except maybe … "

"Tony," Steve interrupted.

"Yup?"

"Thanks for the drink."

"Anytime, Cap."


End file.
